Family Business

Anna at Sepia Mutiny has a post about an internet pharmacy based in India that was selling drugs without prescriptions. The Hindu has a story about how Dr. Bansal organized his operation from his home in Agra, where he even built a palatial house with his ill-begotten gains:

The alleged kingpin of the racket, Brij Bhushan Bansal, who at present is admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Kamayani Escorts Hospital at Sikandra in Uttar Pradesh, began by couriering small consignments of prescription drugs to foreigners whom he befriended during their visit to Agra. The foreigners realised that medicines in India were cheaper and asked him to despatch them in consignments as and when required. Dr. Bansal’s business grew manifold when his son, Akhil, went to Philadelphia for further studies and gave him the idea of striking deals through over 60 pharmaceutical websites. As per the arrangement, they received the money through an Australian middleman, Stakelton, who runs an online payment disbursal website on commission basis. He would receive the credit-card payments for the deals passed on to Dr. Bansal by Akhil and then send their share through wire to bank accounts opened in Agra, Delhi, Mumbai, Singapore and also in an offshore account allegedly opened by Akhil at Channel Islands.

In good Indian family values fashion, Dr. Bansal’s daughter and son-in-law were helping out as well. Reading the news story one gets the impression of nice middle class people, breaking the law,“just a little bit” and not thinking too much of it, till they get busted that is. Not too different from the chief clerk of the motor vehicles department in my home town, where you had to“put a little weight on you application” to get a driving license, regardless of passing the test.

Dr. Bansal is in hospital with a heart condition, meanwhile my viagra spam shows no signs of abating.